Light applause broke out.
No one present held back their applause, as if blessing the young girl for overcoming her ordeal.
Much of the hesitation on Orianna's face had faded as well. She looked toward Seraphine and saw the encouragement in her eyes.
She no longer hesitated. Rising to her feet, she respectfully bowed to Seraphine and Ryan, her words sincere:
"Mr. Ryan, Seraphine, thank you for your help."
"Go on, Orianna. I need to practice this melody in my head a little more and get it into its best state."
Seraphine hummed the tune of Requiem, pink specks of light swirling around her like starlight, breathtakingly beautiful.
Orianna no longer hesitated either and began packing up the operating table she had used to replace her heart.
After tonight, she would leave the home where she had lived for more than a decade.
Some things were meant to be let go.
While Orianna was making preparations, Corin happened to return from outside.
Under Seraphine's dumbfounded gaze, Corin was injected in the neck with a tube of anesthetic the moment he entered. Still unconscious, he was dragged onto the operating table by Orianna.
"Miss Seraphine, you said earlier that your parents came from Zaun?"
Ryan's question pulled Seraphine back from her thoughts. She looked at the three calm people before her and felt that perhaps she had overreacted.
Perhaps she had stayed in her little house for too long. Maybe this was how normal fathers and daughters communicated.
"Yes. They may be from Zaun, but I'm doing very well."
When Seraphine spoke of her parents, her face was filled with happiness.
"Why say 'may be,' Miss Seraphine? Don't you approve of that place?" Ryan suddenly asked with a smile.
"This..."
Ryan's question left Seraphine somewhat at a loss. She had never been to Zaun, but she had always heard from her parents that it was a terrible place.
She occasionally met guests from Zaun at her family's music workshop, and the songs their souls sang were all awful.
Yet deep down, she had always held a small wish: to visit the Zaun where her parents had grown up.
What had happened recently in the Twin Cities made her feel that perhaps it was not quite so terrible there.
After considering it for a moment, Seraphine seriously shook her head.
"Mr. Ryan, I don't know what it's like there, but I don't think I should let prejudice blind me. I'll go and see it someday."
"How about tonight? Once Orianna's experiment is over, I happen to want to recommend someone to her. You can go along and take a look." Ryan offered the suggestion with a faint smile.
"But... my parents will worry..."
Seraphine was tempted, but remembering her parents' warnings, she still hesitated.
"I'll handle that for you. Don't overthink it now. Orianna needs you, and you're a Soul Singer worthy of trust!"
Ryan rose and patted the girl on the shoulder before leaving the workshop with Katarina.
Seraphine's presence was only an extra layer of insurance, meant to strengthen Orianna's confidence.
In Ryan's eyes, that girl, who could create miracles through her own efforts, would ultimately succeed even without their help.
Once they left the house, Seraphine's cheerful singing rose behind them. Katarina could not help asking:
"Are we going to her house now?"
"To meet the parents capable of raising a Soul Singer. If they truly love her, they must have prepared something for her."
Ryan played with the Hex Gemstone he had shown Orianna earlier, his expression meaningful.
Not long after Ryan and Katarina left, pink motes of light filled the workshop. Clear, joyous singing reached its crescendo, and the entire workshop brimmed with a hymn of praise for life.
After an unknown amount of time, the singing subsided, the pink lights scattered, and the workshop returned to its usual tranquility.
After leaving behind a letter, Orianna quietly departed the workshop with Seraphine.
Zaun, night.
Two petite girls crowded onto a mechanical platform barely large enough for one person as it sped over the churning sea.
Standing on the platform, Seraphine gently swayed as she hummed a tune, expectation shining in her eyes.
She did not know how Ryan had persuaded her parents, but in the end, she received a platform that was supposedly capable of carrying her anywhere.
And after Ryan installed a Hex Gemstone, the platform could amplify the songs she received while also transmitting her own voice more effectively.
There was nothing in this world more valuable to her than that.
With this platform, she could properly listen to the songs sung by Zaun's souls.
Unlike Seraphine, who was filled with novelty and excitement, Orianna watched Zaun draw nearer, an indescribable emotion in her eyes.
The beginning of her life's transformation had come from Zaun, and perhaps the end of the name Orianna, daughter of Corin, would also come in Zaun.
"Wow! What a huge robot! Is its creator the person we're looking for?"
As the small platform neared the shore, the ten-meter-tall steel robot came clearly into view, making Seraphine cover her mouth in astonishment.
"It should be him. The gentleman we're looking for is called Viktor. I heard he can guide me along the path ahead." Orianna still wore her gentle smile.
"You really plan to follow Mr. Ryan? Oh, I didn't mean anything else. He's your benefactor. I just think you could live a little more for yourself."
Hearing the unhappiness coming from Orianna's soul, Seraphine hurriedly corrected herself.
"He helped me bring the fate of my first half of life to an end. By following him, perhaps I can fulfill the wish I once had. Whether to repay him or to realize myself, I should follow him."
Orianna brushed a hand over her chest. She could feel that there had long been no heartbeat there, only the tremors produced when the Hex Crystal transmitted energy.
She understood clearly that she could have remained in that small workshop, making dolls for the rest of her life.
But as her body's mechanization had begun, many things she once found exceptionally interesting could no longer stir her interest.
She did not want her body to turn into a machine with the passage of time. Sometimes, taking the first step meant change. No matter whether the outcome was good or bad, it was better than doing nothing.
"Fine, fine. Your song is starting to sound just like Sister Katarina's, full of praise for Mr. Ryan. I really want to hear his soul's song. I wonder what kind of magic it holds."
Seraphine pouted and stomped her feet in dissatisfaction, making slapping sounds against the platform.
This little platform was wonderful in every way, except that standing on it still did not let her hear Ryan's soul's song.
As the two approached the shore, two Zaunites clad in iron police armor came into view.
One was tall and the other short. Both men looked young, yet their bodies were exceptionally strong.
Compared to them, Piltover's Enforcers looked like scrawny little chicks.
"Welcome to Zaun, you two late-night visitors."
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